I still remember the absolute circus that was 2022. Elden Ring had barely finished tattooing \u201cYOU DIED\u201d onto our retinas when the entire community started foaming at the mouth for DLC. Every single day, some new rumor would hatch from a data miner\u2019s hard drive or a supposedly \u201clegit\u201d industry insider\u2019s Twitter burner. Now that we\u2019re comfortably in 2026, with Shadow of the Erdtree having been out long enough for speedrunners to beat it blindfolded, I can\u2019t help but look back and laugh. The leaks we devoured like boiled prawns ranged from eerily prophetic to more fabricated than Patches\u2019 sincerity. Let\u2019s take a stroll through the graveyard of forgotten predictions, shall we?

Oh, the summer of 2022 \u2013 a time when our delusions were as vast as the Lake of Rot. The most spectacular tall tale came courtesy of a ransomware group named ALPHV, who hacked Bandai Namco and decided to gift us \u201cnews.\u201d Among their supposed finds was an Elden Ring DLC called Barbarians of the Badlands, slated for Q3 2023. I\u2019ll admit it, my heart did a little jump. Exploring the Badlands? Unraveling the murky backstory of Hoarah Loux, the absolute unit of a chieftain? Maybe even getting a redemption arc for Nepheli Loux, the poor lass whose questline ended like a wet firecracker? It sounded so good. So plausible. So utterly, gloriously wrong. The release window was already suspicious \u2013 FromSoftware historically drops DLC within a year, not seventeen months later. But logic dissolves when a Tarnished gets hyped. The whole thing quietly evaporated, and the Badlands remain untouched, a vast sandbox of narrative potential that probably just houses a couple of merchants and a very angry lobster.

Then there was the PvP colosseum saga. Early in 2022, the brilliant Lance McDonald did what only Lance does: clipped his camera through walls and found perfectly modeled arenas just sitting there, locked tighter than Ranni\u2019s doll body. It screamed DLC. PvP-focused expansions would be a perfect way to keep the multiplayer scene fresh, especially since Elden Ring\u2019s duel culture was already the stuff of legend. The community assembled its own hype joust, convinced we\u2019d soon be clashing in grand tournaments.

Here\u2019s the punchline: FromSoftware just shrugged and added the colosseums as a free update in December 2022. No fanfare, no price tag, just buttons appearing on the map. The PvP DLC leak was simultaneously the greatest success and the most deflating anticlimax. We spent months theorizing about a premium expansion, and Miyazaki simply said, \u201cHere you go, fight.\u201d Classic.

But not every rumor aged like milk. One leak turned out to be almost divine prophecy. The datamining wizard Garden of Eyes uncovered cut dialogue referencing Miquella, including unused voice lines from Malenia whispering about her twin brother. At the time, Miquella was just a creepy hand sticking out of a membranous egg in Mohg\u2019s creepy basement \u2013 canonically dead, but we all know how \u201cdead\u201d works in these games. The unused character ID for Miquella was the smoking gun. This wasn\u2019t just cut content; it was a roadmap. Fast forward to 2024, and Shadow of the Erdtree catapulted us straight into the Land of Shadow to chase the last Empyrean\u2019s fractured essence. Miquella became one of the most unsettlingly beautiful, terrifying bosses FromSoftware has ever crafted. The cocoon wasn\u2019t a tomb; it was a promise. That leak was so accurate it\u2019s almost as if the developers left breadcrumbs on purpose, knowing we\u2019d sniff them out.

What about the rest of the wishlist? Godwyn the Golden, Prince of Death, still sleeps in his twisted, fishy form beneath the capital. Queen Marika\u2019s full, uncensored backstory remains as shattered as her titular ring. These are the dangling threads that keep a wretch like me awake at night. The expansion gave us incredible bosses and lore so dense you could smith weapons with it, but it also left a whole pantheon of demigods begging for a spotlight.

Now, in 2026, the rumor mill has evolved. With Shadow of the Erdtree firmly in the rearview mirror, the lunatic fringe of the fanbase has already pivoted to theories about a second DLC or even a full sequel. Will we ever fight the Godskin Noble\u2019s even more rotund grandfather in the Badlands? Will Torrent finally get his own character arc? Probably not. But the beautiful madness of Elden Ring speculation never dies. It merely gets summoned back as a spirit ash whenever a developer sneezes in an interview. Looking back, I wouldn\u2019t trade those wild, pre-DLC days for anything \u2013 not even the ability to respec without using a Larval Tear. The leaks were wrong, the memes were plentiful, and somehow, the truth ended up being even weirder than the rumors.